'Because it's a casual pub thing.' Tilly shrugged. 'He might just be attempting to be friendly. He doesn't give a lot away.'
Pia topped up her glass. ‘The plot thickens.'
'There is something I do need to find out. The wife thing.'
'Nah, not one by the looks of it.' Jasmine noted.
Tilly glanced out at the water. 'I don't really know how to find out without asking him directly, which I amnotdoing.'
'No, don't do that.' Jasmine shook her head.
'What was that neighbour who asked you to go for drinks? Lucie was it? When’s that?' Pia asked.
Tilly frowned. ‘Drinks?'
'You said you're going to drinks. Someone there will know.' Pia smiled. 'Islands are ninety per cent gossip. You'll have the full picture before pudding.'
Jasmine pointed at her screen. 'She's right, actually. You could ask around casually, obviously.'
Tilly made a face. 'It might lookveryobvious.'
'You’ll just have to play it by ear. Come on, though, he wouldn’t have asked you if he were married. It justwouldn’thappen.'
Tilly pursed her lips. 'Or he is and is just being friendly. That is athinghere on Darling. Everyone tries to be nice and neighbourly...'
'You’re going to have to find out about the wife at the drinks. If he’s not married, we are going to need to do a deep dive on what you wear to the oyster night and the whole schemozzle.'
Jasmine nodded. 'Yeah, find out about the wife first.'
'Rightio.' Tilly smiled. 'Well, thanks. Yep, I suppose once I know that, it will be clear.'
Pia lifted her glass. 'That's what we're here for. Now, come on, I want to know more about the Australian doctor, because I feel like we glossed over him enormously.'
Tilly put her face in her hands.
'Yep, I liked the sound of the Australian doctor, too.' Jasmine sat up. 'I mean, what’s not to love?'
Tilly giggled. The Australian, however, wasn’t even in the picture. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t get a look in whatsoever.
32
Tilly was sitting on an upturned crate in the boat room, ready for a call from Portugal. She'd been clearing out again all morning, and the room around her looked like a jumble sale. Nets in piles, ropes all over the place, the clinker boat sitting in the middle of it all. Wiping her hands down her dungarees, she propped herself by the harbour-side window where the signal showed two bars, held her phone up and waited. Right on time, her phone buzzed, and she answered. Inês's face filled the screen, and then swung to reveal a young woman with a clipboard and a smile.
'Tee-lee! This is Beatriz, my assistant. We’ll show you what we have, and you will choose. Yes? We are in the dump room as we discussed. Lovely to see you.'
'Hiya! Yes, lovely to see you, too.'
The phone on the other end turned around, and Tilly smiled. There it was, the dump room more or less identical to how it had been when Tilly had walked into it previously. Four years and half a planet later, and exactly as she'd always seen it in her head. The little back room in the hills, racked floor-to-ceiling, bolt after bolt after bolt of the most gorgeous linen ever. Even through a phone screen, the colours did something to her, andshe knew somehow that her idea was a good one. Deep berry reds stacked next to bottle greens, sludgy blues, a grey like the estuary at low tide, even the purples were nice. Beatriz walked slowly along the racks, and Tilly, wedged by a window in an old shed on the other side of Europe, drank the whole lot in.
'You see?' Inês's voice floated from off-screen. 'All still here and according to my regular buyers not getting a look in. So, tell me what you want out of this lot.'
Tilly scoffed. What did she want? Pretty much everything. All of it would do. Every last flawed, slubbed, wandering inch of the place. What she could afford to ship was another conversation entirely. 'Can Beatriz go back to the reds? The check one, second shelf and also the plain deep berry ones. Gosh, the colours are so lovely in all those different hues. The dyes are what I remembered.'
Beatriz obliged. The phone came in close on a heavy linen in the deepest berry red full of slubs, and Tilly felt the click go off again, the same one from the pillowcases. Clicks were what her dad had built a whole life on. She could see her vision right there in the dump room among the piles and piles of linen. The imperfection was Foghorn to a T.
'They’re all hand-dyed with natural dyes, which is why the hues are different.' Inês noted. 'Hmm, this green would be nice with them and one of the blues. Yes, they are lovely up close.'
Tilly nodded. 'Ooh, yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about. I've made ten thousand white beds, Inês, and spent ages thinking about the opposite.'
